Hatam Soferet

There's quite the lightning storm going on out there. I'm at the airport, so I have an unusually large amount of horizon to look at, and the lightning's the kind that plays acriss the sky as far as you can see, back and forth, these gigantic parallel streaks filling the sky and flicking off again.

It's the strange kind of lightning storm that fills the sky but makes no sound. There's no rain, no thunder, just the sky lighting up, like headlights across a ceiling, but it's the biggest ceiling *ever* and the biggest headlights too. Every so often a bigger whopper than usual breaks through and you can see the bolt shaking itself into the ground.

There might be thunder, actually; I'm wearing earplugs because someone's talking about healthcare on the piped television and it makes me mad to listen to white dudes with health insurance pontificating about why the existing system is made of cookies. Cos from where I'm standing it's a question of "how many people have to be permanently crippled from inadequate care before you start feeling sorry enough for them that you want your health money to pay healthcare costs rather than insurance executives," which seems like something of a no-brainer to me; I'd much rather my friends got treatment than that we should pay for some twerps in an office to shuffle claim forms and misfile things. I mean per capita the US could spend what the UK spends, and everyone would have health care, and there'd still be bloody masses left over, and we could use it for unemployment benefits for those recently fired from insurance companies. Anyway, I'm wearing earplugs, so if there is thunder I can't hear it. But I don't think there is.

Talking of health insurance, as part of my divorce paperwork, I and he have to submit a form which says: I [NAME] fully understand that upon the entrance of this divorce agreement, I may no longer be allowed to receive health coverage under my former spouse's health insurance plan. I may be entitled to purchase health insurance on my own through a COBRA option, if available, otherwise I may be required to secure my own health insurance.

That is, before your divorce is admitted for the consideration of the court, you have to turn in a sworn statement to the effect that you understand just how much a divorce can bollocks up your healthcare. I know that benefits and pensions and stuff can play a part when deciding whether to get divorced or not, but healthcare - and sworn statements - sheesh.

For those not used to the US system: there's this magical thing called a pre-existing condition, you see; if you have ever been sick before you are a Bad Risk. If you actually have real chronic problems and need to get your own insurance after your divorce you'd better marry a doctor pronto, and if you once got sick ten years ago and got better and didn't think it worth mentioning you'd better pray you never need expensive treatment because then the insurance company digs that up and says "oo you had a pre-existing condition your insurance is invalidated now we don't have pay your bills NEH NEH NEH and btw you owe the hospital several hundred thousand dollars" and you're screwed again. So getting your own insurance isn't necessarily going to happen, even if you've got a job that offers it. Oh, your insurance premiums pay for the dirt-digging peons as well. It's in their interest to deny you care so they put a lot of effort into it. Ugh.

The downside of watching spectacular electrical storms from the airport is that...they close the airport. Planes are great big Faraday cages so people in planes are okay, but I suppose it's dangerous for the ground crews, and I spose it might fry the tyres as well.

I have a kind of lurgy whose effects mimic those of a bang on the head. So I'm perpetually dizzy and a bit disoriented, slightly nauseous, and very tired, but minus the actual bang on the head.

Unfortunately, of course, all my gainful employment requires a good deal of brain, and can't be done with this kind of impairment. So, for instance, I would like to write you something terribly profound connecting this post of Slacktivist's with something tircha said about the first chapter of Eicha, but it ain't going to happen this year.

So instead I will share some photos of a scarf I finished a while ago. Can't remember if I've already shared these (lack of brain), but they're still pretty.



and here look this is me wearing it and holding some feathers



I'm going to do a piece of headgear with the remaining yarn for when I am leyning at my shul and have to wear headgear. Ladykippah sort of thing.

Anyone on Ravelry, by the way?

Depressing

Hilarious (read the product reviews)

Breaking news shocker, exercise won't make you thin if you're already at your body's optimal weight

scary - I didn't know heat from candleholders could ignite tables.

Serious effort to combat Artscroll's dominance in the siddur market. Winning quote: It is almost like the ArtScroll siddur is a household word - er, "almost"??

This made me very very happy and is completely non-political.

I fell over again! Only this time in daylight. I was - rather ambitiously - running up the road, trying to catch up with jillt, and carrying a weekend bag and wearing sandals with A Bit Too Much Heel. Then my ankle gave way and slipped out from under me, and I pitched forward and landed full-length on the pavement, with an ankle going OW OW OW OWWWWW. I knew it was still twingy from last week, but I didn't think it was actually weakened enough to be unreliable. How educational!

However. I was about 10 metres in front of a chap who caught up with me and started to ask if I was OK, and quickly realised I wasn't so instead started doing things like checking if it was broken. "Nurse in mufti," I thought, and indeed he was. There's a major school of nursing right up our road, see. If you're going to fall over spectacularly, doing it near a regional nursing centre is totally the way to do it.

I'd twisted my poor ankle good and properly, and I'm the kind of squeamish that really doesn't like seeing its own ankle swelling up disproportionately. So as soon as I saw how weird it looked, my head started swimming and oozing in and out, and next thing I knew there were two nurses. Luckily Nurse 2 was female and be-uniformed, so I knew I wasn't just seeing doubles. So there's me, lying on the pavement being fussed over by two nurses, and next thing I know there's a policeman leaning out of a ginormous police van asking what's up.

Right? So now I've got two nurses and a policeman, and jillt is merrily continuing up the road, expecting me to catch her up, unaware that I'm prioritising getting friendly with the pavement. The policeman - nice chap - cruised off up the road to fetch her; this is the first time jillt has been pursued by police.

Total count now: me, two nurses, a policeman, and jillt. And a huge police van. Whee!

I might've gone home for a cup of tea, next, but I had a non-amendable ticket to Cambridge and I wasn't going to forfeit that, only I'd wasted rather a lot of time falling over and being dizzy and stuff and wasn't in a state to run for any bus, so the last bit was thanking the nice nurses and getting a ride to the bus stop in the police van (I have never done this before). The people at the bus stop gave me Very Odd Looks when I lurched out and waved byebyes, haha. Then they gave me a Wide Berth and made room on the bench.

Now I'm in Cambridge, with a lot of bandage courtesy of pseudomonas, and walking somewhat gingerly because there's still rather more ankle than there ought to be and accordingly it can protest that bit more strongly at being walked on. Ought to be more or less okay in a few days, although Nurse 1 said it'd probably take six weeks or so to be fully better.

Anyway, Nurse 1, Nurse 2, and Mr Policeman have to a degree restored my faith in arbitrary altruism. I now know that if you choose your time and place with care, falling over and crocking your ankle doesn't have to be a solitary experience.

Q-tip boxes always say Do Not Insert Into Inner Ear Or Nose Canal, and I always thought that was one of those idiot warnings like you get on coffee cups, Contents May Be Hot - sort of Do Not Shove These In So Deep That They Get Stuck In Your Hippocampus. But no, it is not an idiot warning.

Really it should say If You Rub Even A Little Bit Too Hard, You Will Probably Get An Infection, And It Will Be Incredibly Painful For Several Days, And You Will Have To Take Scary Amounts Of Scary Painkillers; You Won't Be Able To Sleep, Hear, Or Chew, And You Will Heartily Regret Having Disregarded This Warning.

I guess they don't really have space for that. Well, now I know better, and now you do too.

I want to find a different doctor, because I don't see eye-to-eye with my current one about birth control (she prescribed me brand Y, which promptly put twenty pounds on my tummy. Her advice? Cut out carbs*).

My insurance theoretically has a searchable database, but it doesn't work; half the time it just says Incorrect Parameter and the rest of the time it denies the existence of doctors of any kind anywhere in Riverdale. I tried Superpages, but that wasn't awfully helpful. I'm a bit annoyed. It really seems that walking the streets until I find a doctor's office will be the most efficient way to do it, which really seems stupid.


* which makes me so angry for so many reasons it's not even worth starting

The rest of the week didn't contain all that much. Some reading of halacha, some reading of articles. Mostly recovering from the several nights last week when it was necessary to stay up into the wee hours working. Tomorrow the plan is to go and write Hebrew names in Westchester for a few hours, and then come home and work on 's mezuzot.

In an interesting departure from the norm, I sneezed this morning and in so doing threw my back out of joint, so now sitting, bending etc are distinctly careful operations.

Oh, and you can tell it's spring now, because the haze over the city has turned that special spring-time shade of pale brown, and daffodils are two bunches for $5.

The prescription people have four rules:

1. You can have only thirty days' worth of pills.
2. You may only order a refill twenty days in.
3. A prescription takes three to five business days to fill
4. and a further five to seven business days to ship.

It does not take a genius to spot that it's quite likely that one will run out of medication. Now, "maintenance medication" is exempt from this, you can have ninety days at a time, so fortunately you can stay alive.

My happy pills don't count as maintenance, even though without them I'm liable to become dysfunctionally depressed and certain to become dysfunctionally dizzy. Good thing I don't need to drive for e.g. my job, because I'd be crashing into things. Good thing I don't need to stand up a whole lot. Good thing it's a snow day so I don't have to go teach today.

Their response? "According to our records, you should have eight days left of your medication." Well, I don't. I don't have any. I am glad to have health insurance, but sometimes I wish that the executives who made the rules had the same insurance I do.

I fed the medical profession again today - they took enough blood for several dinners.

( Musings on femininity )

I finished making my display for The Dinner. I forgot the camera to take a piccie of it, so you'll all have to wait until after the weekend. But I set it up in one of the classrooms, and people were most admiring, which was nice.

In other news, I'm learning that hayfever medication doesn't go well with happy pills - I'm totally tranquillized. Zzzzzz.